As feared and forecasted, The Hollywood Reporter has made some top-level coronavirus staff cuts, and THR‘s chief film critic Todd McCarthy is among the casualties. Once movies and film festivals start happening again (presumably by August if not before) McCarthy would presumably get his gig back. Right?
Longtime veteran McCarthy is one of the most perceptive, eloquent and widely admired film critics in the realm today. Knows everyone and everything, has written books, directed a great doc about cinematography among others, etc.
THR‘s award-season pulsetaker and industry investigator Scott Feinberg has been spared, at least for the time being.
Excerpt of McCarthy statement, posted today at 5:13 pm on Deadline: “A month ago I was surprised, out of nowhere, to get a nice raise. Yesterday I got the boot. By guys I’ve never met. Apparently if you make over a certain amount, you’re suddenly too expensive for the new owners of The Hollywood Reporter, which has recently been reported as losing in the vicinity of $15 million per year. Dozens are being forced to walk the plank. It’s a bloodbath.
“What were the bosses thinking when they gave me a raise last month? What on earth are they thinking now? As I said to The New York Times when I was let go from Variety just over a decade ago, ‘It’s the end of something.’ What the next something is — for everyone is our business — seems less knowable than ever.”
Note: I posted the following because I believe that what “Friendo” said earlier today represents a certain current in the wind right now. Nothing more than that. I don’t share Friendo’s view on the matter, but between he and Joe Rogan this seems to be a bit more than anecdotal chatter.
Friendo: Jill Biden is being reckless. She should really tell her husband to step down from the nomination. She’s assisting in his death sentence. HE: What are you referring to? Does he have the virus? Friendo: Biden is going senile. Doesn’t Jill realize that? Does she really want her husband to go through this stressful ordeal? It’s not too late for him to step down and a better candidate to replace him. Imagine a Trump/Biden debate. Biden can’t string a full sentence together. He mumbles and slurs. Trump will eat him alive. America is not blind to this. I don’t understand how some can conceivably see this working out for Biden and the Dems. Biden should step down after he picks his vp and let Kamala or whomever take on Trump head-on. HE: I would be enormously comforted if Biden were to withdraw and Gavin Newsom or Andrew Cuomo takes his place. I was calling him Droolin’ Joe for months. But there’s no chance Biden withdraws. No chance. Friendo: Biden’s daily COVID streaming videos are cringe-worthy. And nobody’s paying attention to them. It’s all Trump. HE: Biden gets in and serves a single term, and delegates wisely and affectively, and then Newsom or Cuomo run in ’24. The idea is to return to decency. I’m fairly to somewhat persuaded that Biden will win in November.
Sunday, 2.9.20 feels like a century ago. Nine weeks have actually passed. Imagine yourself at the Neon/Parasite Oscar-viewing party at Soho House. You’ve been there six and a half hours, Bong Joon-ho has won four Oscars (Best Picture, Best Int’l Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay) and the whole party is whoo-whooing and sipping the champagne. You’re thinking BJH probably won’t show until after midnight or even 1 or 2 am, and that hanging around for another three or four hours isn’t worth the exhaustion.
So you say goodnight to some friends and walk down the staircase and step into the elevator. You arrive at the ground-level parking lot floor and suddenly a younger, tuxedo-wearing guy you kind of “know” but whose name escapes smiles and shakes your hand and says “got a minute?” He pulls you over to an empty corner in the parking area. You’re half intrigued. His right hand is resting protectively on your left shoulder as he leans forward and begins to half-whisper the following:
Tuxedo Guy: “This is going to sound weird and maybe even mind-numbing but what I’m about to tell you is God’s honest truth. I can’t tell you how I know but I do. I’m not bullshitting and I wish I was…” HE: “Okay.” Tuxedo Guy: (Exhales) “There’s no easy way to say this but in a few weeks’ time your life will all but totally stop. All of us, everyone, the whole thing. Europe, Asia, everywhere. You’ll continue with the column but everything else will stop. No more incomes, no more travelling, no more restaurants, no more socializing, no more screenings or film festivals, no more wandering around Amoeba Records, no more Aero theatre, no more hiking or beach-walking…it’s all going to screech to a halt.” HE: “That’s the punchline?” Tuxedo Guy: “It’s real, man.” HE: “You heard this today?” Tuxedo Guy: “I know. Believe me. I’m telling you the truth.” HE: “Caused by what? A nuclear attack?” Tuxedo Guy: “No bombs, no terror, not a sound. When it happens you’ll be able to hear a pin drop.” HE: “When what happens?”
Books, stories and documentaries about Howard Hughes are fascinating, but the two big films about him — Martin Scorsese‘s The Aviator (’04) and Warren Beatty‘s Rules Don’t Apply (’16) — left me (and, I’m presuming, millions of others) disengaged and dispirited. Especially in the case of The Aviator, which may be Scorsese’s least enjoyable film, Cate Blanchett‘s Katharine Hepburn performance aside.
I just re-watched the Beverly Hills plane crash sequence, and I don’t believe a frame of it — every shot is pushed and amplified and CG’ed to a fare-thee-well — visual intensity for its own sake. And for me, Leonardo DiCaprio‘s performance was a whiff — emotionally on-target but otherwise about “acting.” I know Hughes spoke with a flat Midwestern accent and was never mistaken by anyone for an urban sophisticate, but DiCaprio over-channelled the Clem Kadiddlehopper. (His Hughes and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood‘s Rick Dalton are peas in a pod.)
Jason Robards‘ cameo-level performance in Melvin and Howard was the only Hughes I ever liked, and that was 40 years ago.
The bottom line is that The Aviator and Rules Don’t Apply have killed the Hughes legend, certainly among 21st Century movie audiences.
Incidentally: Hughes was born in December 1905. He was 41 when he testified before Congress in 1947 [after the jump]. He looked 51 if a day. By today’s standards he could be 55 or even 60.
Posted five weeks ago — just caught it this morning. Reptile face twitch, mouth flare, cocaine comedown, etc. I honestly haven’t seen this kind of “that’s what you are but what am I?” since I was nine or ten. One of Trump’s best guys. Soldier, mafioso…”fuck you,” “little bitch,” etc. I’d like to know the specifics, but otherwise what an eye-opener.
World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy is currently polling 200-plus critics and directors for their choices for Best of the 1990s and Best of the Aughts. He’s asked if I’m sticking to my previously posted favorites. I said I need to think things over.
On 4.10.19I posted my top 40 of the ’90s, and decided on the following as my top five: 1. Fargo (d: Coen brothers); 2. GoodFellas (d: Martin Scorsese); 3. Pulp Fiction (d: Quentin Tarantino); 4. Unforgiven (d: Clint Eastwood); 5. L.A. Confidential (d: Curtis Hanson).
On 10.6.09 I posed my Best of the Aughts So Far. The top five at the time were (1) Zodiac; (2) Memento; (3) Traffic; (4) Amores perros and (5) United 93.
With the release date of every film on the calendar delayed until whenever, a discussion arose today about when a certain ready-to-open film might see the light of day. Which would depend, of course, on when the pandemic begins to lift.
Hollywood Elsewhere: “As far as I can discern the smart assessment is that the plague starts to lift in June, certainly by July. And then (per Dr. Fauci) a possibility of a resurgence in the fall.”
Knowledgable filmmaker: “The plague starts to lift in August, but then we need to be certain it doesn’t come back. No filmmaking until the new year. Except in New Zealand, Australia and Taiwan, which are islands that have acted intelligently to contain and eliminate the virus.”
Hollywood Elsewhere: “Okay, but who’s saying August exactly? June (or roughly seven or eight weeks hence) doesn’t seem at all crazy from this end, and certainly not July. China has lifted its lockdown; ditto South Korea. You’re telling me this country has to endure three and a half more months of cabin fever?”
Knowledgable filmmaker: “China and South Korea were methodical in dealing with the virus. America has been, and will continue to be, a mess.”
Three days ago the headline of an unpublished story by TheWrap‘s J. Clara Chan seemed to confirm the worst. Chan’s story apparently reported that THR and Billboard cutbacks were imminent. The story never surfaced but the headline leaked. The two publications along with SpinMedia are owned by the Greenwich, Connecticut-based Valence Media.
Industry colleague: “That place” — THR — “and its parent company have been financially [struggling] for a long time. Good opportunity for the mean owners to start job eliminating — no surprise here. Why not hit ‘em when they’re down?”
All along I’ve been thinking that The Eddy, an eight-episode, Paris-based Netflix series bowing on 5.8.20, was a Damien Chazelle enterprise that would star Moonlight‘s Andre Holland along with Cold War‘s Joanna Kulig in a significant leading role.
The opening line of the series’ Wikipedia page says “directed by Damien Chazelle”, and Kulig is paired with Holland in the recently released one-sheet.
Except I’m now reminded that the actual creator-writer is Jack Thorne, and that Chazelle was more or less a hired gun who directed the first two episodes (#1 and #2). Plus the trailer indicates the series is largely about Holland’s character, Elliot Udo, being harassed by goons (one of them played by Les Miserables costar Alexis Manenti).
And Amandla Sternberg, 21, seems to be playing a larger role than Kulig, whose character has some kind of relationship with Holland but is largely shown going through the motions of a petulant diva.
The poster says the series was co-directed by Chazelle and Alan Poul, although Poul directed only the last two episodes (#7 and #8). Two episodes were also directed by Houda Benyamina (#3 and #4) and Laila Mrrakchi (#5 and #6).
Kurt Russell, Bing’s son and in his early 20s at the time, served as co-manager and an occasional designated hitter. Russell is an impassioned and entertaining talking head in the doc.
I flipped over Battered Bastards when I saw it during Sundance ’14. Easily one of the most heartwarming baseball docs I’ve ever seen, in this or the previous century. Variety‘s Scott Foundas (now a hotshot, BMW-driving Amazon exec) described it as “so rife with underdog victors and hairpin twists of fortune that, if it weren’t all true, no one would believe it.” The Hollywood Reporter‘s Duane Byrge called the doc is “a charming anti-establishment yarn that transcends the game.”
The Battered Bastards of Baseball co-directors Chapman and Maclain Way on either side of Kurt Russell during last Monday night’s after-party at 501 Main Street in Park City.
Immediately after the Sundance showing there was talk about making Battered Bastards into a narrative feature. The film “is ripe for a big-screen redo given the feel-good nature of the story that summons memories of classic baseball sagas like A League of Their Own,” I wrote.
It was soon speculated and reported that In The Bedroom‘s Todd Field, who served as the Mavericks’ bat boy and is one of the doc’s talking heads, might direct the feature version. That was after Satan in the form of Justin Lin intervened, which I found horrific. I only know that when no one was looking the project had curdled and stalled. Why I don’t know. I’ve asked a couple of parties to share what happened on a non-attrib basis.
On 1.24.14 The Hollywood Reporter‘s Tatiana Siegelwrote that “after multiple buyers circled The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Justin Lin has acquired narrative remake rights of the film and will self-finance via his Perfect Storm banner. Lin, who will produce, beat out several pursuers for remake rights, including Columbia Pictures, Fox Searchlight and DreamWorks.
Here’s how I put in the same day as Siegel’s story: “During the post-screening dinner party I mentioned to Russell that BBoB is obviously excellent material for a feature, and his response was ‘hmm, yeah, maybe…who knows?’ I couldn’t believe Russell hadn’t at least thought about it, this being not just his dad’s story but his own. (Maybe he was pretending to be reluctant or noncommittal — maybe he just didn’t want to be candid with a journalist.) Somebody said at the party that if a movie version comes together an ideal director would be Todd Field (In The Bedroom).
“That was four nights ago. Today it was reported that a film version might indeed happen, but that the remake rights had been purchased by Fast and the Furious franchise helmer Justin Lin, who has always impressed me as one of the most brazenly shallow, corporate-kowtowing filmmakers working today. (Lin’s production company, Perfect Storm Entertainment, is the rights holder.)
Some faces need moustaches. Some movie-star faces (Clark Gable, Burt Reynolds, Sam Elliott, Tom Selleck) are almost unimaginable without them. For some movie characters (Robert Redford‘s Sundance Kid, Daniel Day Lewis‘s Bill the Butcher) moustaches were essential components.
But it just occured to me this morning that while two-week stubble and beards are par for the course these days (at least among customers of West Hollywood Pavilions), it’s become a relatively rare thing to run into a moustache upon an otherwise clean shaven mug. Not unheard of but rare, and to be honest a little curious looking.
That’s because there have only been three distinct phases over the last 90-odd years in which moustaches were “happening.”
Phase one began with Clark Gable‘s carefully trimmed ‘stache in It Happened One Night (’34) — an urban machismo profile that launched a thousand ships. The pencil-thin ‘stache lasted until death for Gable and Brian Donlevy and a few others but only into the late ’40s or early ’50s for everyone else.
Four or five years after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the “Castro clone” ‘stache exploded within urban gay communities, and it refused to retreat until…what, the mid ’80s? I know that for those paying attention, the gay clone look was suddenly hugely unfashionable soon after the failure of Alan Carr‘s Can’t Stop The Music (’80), so there was that.
Moustaches will never go away, of course, but they haven’t re-ignited over the last 40-plus years. Unless I’ve been missing something. I live in a gay neighborhood so don’t tell me.
Apparently Barack Obama‘s game plan was to wait for Bernie Sanders to officially endorse Uncle Joe before making his own declaration. So now he has. If he’d waited any longer, it would’ve become a thing.
All that aside, Obama’s remarks are that of a human being, a leader, a man of kindness and conscience, a good egg, a practical thinker, a visionary.
